Discovering new perspectives
For five Indian students, attending a prestigious science forum has helped open their minds and widen their viewpoints, writes GAURAV PANDEY
The five Indian students with their Australian peers and organisers from the ISS, at a welcome event hosted by the Consul General of India, Amit Dasgupta (centre)
Five science students from India took part in the prestigious Professor Harry Messel International Science School (ISS) 2011 – a two-week science education programme for Year 11 and 12 students held in the School of Physics, the University of Sydney from July 3-16.
The ISS is a free 2-week educational programme run every two years by the Science Foundation for Physics, University of Sydney. It is regarded as the best of its kind in the world, covering a wide range of topics in science. One of the features of the programme is the lecture series. Past ISS lecturers include James Watson who won a Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA, and Jerome Friedman, also a Nobel laureate his for work on particle physics.
The ISS is the brainchild of Professor Harry Messel who has dedicated his life to the pursuit of excellence in education, and that’s the message he had for ISS participants. “A life lived in pursuit of excellence is a life well lived,” he said at a reception hosted for the students at the University of Sydney. “Learning is exciting, and one should never stop asking questioning in life, because that is what scientists do. A life lived in pursuit of excellence is a life well lived,” he reiterated.
Nikhil Mahajan from Faridkot, a small town in Punjab, said he was “extremely happy” to be a part of the programme. He plans to join the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), and he may have already taken a step in that direction by securing 132nd rank in the extremely challenging IIT joint entrance exam. “It was great to interact with other participants and teachers,” he says. “For me, interacting with great scientists such as Professor John Pindry, the invisibility pioneer was the most rewarding experience.”
Lalith Kishore found the Sydney winter “too extreme a change” from Chennai’s hot and sultry summer, but that didn’t deter him from enjoying the city thoroughly. “The civic sense in people here is admirable, they are friendly people who open up to you,” he says. “Despite some of us being a little shy in the beginning, we all felt at home here.”
Jisha Kambo, the only girl among the five, comes from Shillong, a beautiful town in North Eastern India. She plans to go to Cornell University to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in science. “The best thing was that we could follow a lot of what the teachers were saying, despite a lot of those concepts being too advanced for students in our age group. I developed a deep interest in particle physics during the programme,” she says, adding that the two weeks were a combination of lectures, sightseeing and interaction with people of different ethnicities and cultures.
Jyotesh Singh from New Delhi was another IIT-bound student in the group. For him the programme stood out for its “interactive environment” which allowed students to share and explore. “We took part in various science and social activities and learnt from one another,” he says. “I particularly enjoyed being a part of the various science workshops.”
Kochi boy Satyawageeshwar Subramanium wants to become a “technocrat scientist.” His love for pure science found him a place at the prestigious Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. Like many others, he too was pleasantly surprised to find out that not only did they understand a lot of the higher concepts being discussed, their thorough understanding of the fundamentals of physics allowed them to contribute to many discussions. “The Indian education system is very good up to class 12. We study everything in depth. But I feel the Australian education system is better as far as flexibility in choosing your subjects is concerned. Here they can choose a lot of electives, which we only can expect to do in college,” says Satyawageeshwar.
The students recounted with pleasure their interaction with officials, including Amit Dasgupta, the Consulate General of India in Sydney at a reception he hosted for them. “ For me, that was the most memorable part of the trip. I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk to diplomats about their profession and its challenges,” says Nikhil.
The fact that the students, who overcame stiff competition from tens of thousands of their peers, hail from across the country highlights the rising standard of education in even smaller towns in India. It is heartening to see talented youngsters from far-flung, lesser-known areas as informed as their counterparts from the traditional education hubs.
Dr Chris Stewart, Manager, ISS, said in a press release, “It’s great to have an international programme as it promotes good global citizenship. After all, any potential challenges our world will face in the future will have to be solved, and possibly pre-empted, by individuals of the calibre that attend the ISS all working together. We know that the students that attend the ISS today, are the future leaders of tomorrow.”
